This page is here to help students taking or revising our course Meteorology
& Astronomy. The meteorology component is
subtitled 'Meteorology: an introduction to weather, climate and the environment' and is a course intended for anyone
with an interest in the subject and a basic knowledge of physical science and standard grade mathematics. The slides and notes are kept up-to-date.

You can read
here an earlier version of the introductory course handout
(a doc file). This includes a detailed list of course
content (pdf file) topics that you will find helpful for revision. Remember that the overheads are not
a complete synopsis of the lecture contents, simply a summary. Read the
textbook discussed in the introductory handout as well. The overhead summaries
are .pdf files containing 6 slides to a page. They can be viewed using
the Acrobat reader or equivalent software (on class-room PCs) and printed on
a postscript printer (in colour, if required, but see further comments
on printing
slides). The satellite images exercise and the computer lab referenced at the end of the blue panel are no longer part of the course but you are welcome to look at them.

***** THE LECTURES ARE TRANSLATED INTO pdf FILES for both the slides
(1 to-a page) and the summaries (6 to-a-page).

***** In addition to the overhead summaries, the lecturer's own notes
that guide what he says are included this year for most sections of the course (in pdf
format). Views expressed in these notes are his personal views.

UK Weather &
Climate

The BBC weather pages
contain the Aberdeen 5-day forecast, an interesting overlay of forecast weather on the NE Scotland map, local conditions, the current pressure chart, a video of the day's TV forecast and access to weather on a European
and world stage. The Met office offer a new look 7-day
Aberdeen forecast.Met Office pressure charts over the next 72 hours can be seen on another Met Office page, with an animation arrow beneath the chart. Their 'nowcast' Grampian Region rain radar is useful. The Met Office also has summary pages on the science behind the creation of forecasts on different timescales.

Metcheck
offers a user friendly layout that can be customised to your postcode
(and they have many links besides) but in my experience their forecasts seem to err on the pessimistic side.

Wunderground has a map that shows the Aberdeen locality with local weather stations marked. Click on an icon and further weather information from that station shows, including current weather and the 10-day forecast in symbols and words.

A more comprehensive
statement of current local conditions is available as the Dyce
hourly weather report
for the last 24 hours, with a graphical version supplied by the Met Office. The Met Office provide recent conditions
reported over the country from selected locations shown on a map.
Meteorological records for 12 weather variables for Aberdeen from
1994 until the present can be found and downloaded from NOAA's CLIMVIS
site - choose "Global Summary 12 weather elements" and follow
the "time series" link. The Department of Physics used to
show some monthly
sunshine figures
recorded at the Fraser Noble Building but the list is not
up-to-date since our service to the national radiation network has been taken over by the Dyce weather centre.

A summary of Aberdeen's climate
is given here in graphs and tables. A range of variables is simply tablulated in
Aberdeen monthly averages
for temperatures, rainfall, windspeed and humidity in Imperial
and metric units. Historical statistics giving Aberdeen's average
temperature, rainfall and pressure can be found under historical climate data.
From here you can navigate to other places in the NE, and beyond.

Today's forecasts are based on the output of numerical models. You can explore the kind of data available to professional forecasters from a realistic model generated by ManUniCast. A wide range of variables can be plotted (see the 'Production Descriptions' tab) including a range of atmospheric chemistry predictions. The 'Forecasts' page uses a straightforward interface either to overlay results on an outline of the UK or Europe, or present meteograms and some other options. Anyone interested in forecasting beyond the scope of our course should explore this resource, ideally with guidance from a textbook on operational weather forecasting.

Much more UK and foreign weather can be found in our Meteorology
links,
including satellite pictures.

A stunning view of
the world today
is obtained in a composite picture from the University of Wisconsin
that illustrates the world's cloud as seen by geostationary satellites,
and both land and sea temperatures

More
LinksThere
is plenty of meteorology on the World Wide Web. A list of additional
LINKS is given here that will give
you further access to today's forecasts, weather charts, meteorological
organisations, educational resources and sites with many more references.
We also have yet another page of sites
of related interest.